Taoist priest goes to America

"Fellow villager, please don't blame me for being heartless." Gu Jinghong wiped the sweat from his forehead with a tissue, leaned forward, and lowered his voice to Li An.

"To be honest with you, my fellow villager, I couldn't help but laugh at the things I recorded, because I am a living example."

"I've lived here for eleven years, how could I not know what this damn thing America is?"

"If it were truly a goldmine, I'd just come and pick it up. Why would I waste my time and energy cursing and arguing, using these shady brokers to lure them over? They're probably busy making money off the ground!"

"Those brainless idiots actually believed it all... You can imagine how many drooling, stupid giant babies our country has raised."

Ang Lee's meal arrived, interrupting Gu Jinghong's excited outburst. The freshly cooked steak had its fat flowing along the grain, with droplets of oil constantly jumping and making clear popping sounds.

Ang Lee took a sip of freshly squeezed orange juice and gestured with his chin for Gu Jinghong to continue.

"They got the sweet air they wanted, I made my money, and what about you folks? You got a clean and hygienic domestic environment. Without those lucky breaks, you folks could live very well."

"Whether they suffer in America or not is none of my business. That's their own choice. They're adults; they have to walk the path they chose."

Gu Jinghong's words caught in his throat, and he let out a bitter laugh.

"To tell you the truth," he said, his speech slowing considerably, "I hate those people."

Those who truly abandon everything and try every means to escape. I hate them.

Ang Lee picked up his knife and fork, and while looking at Gu Jinghong, he cut a steak and put it in his mouth.

"I was brought to America by people like this when I was a child," Gu Jinghong said in a low voice.

"My parents smuggled me out of the country when I was three years old. I grew up in the United States. From kindergarten to high school, I was the only student from Dongda University in my circle of friends. Most of the time, I had no idea where I was."

"I speak Chinese at home, English at school, and switch back to Chinese when I get home. It's like switching between two worlds every day, and I don't belong to either."

He picked up the iced coffee in front of him and took a sip; the ice water dripped down the rim of the cup.

"But my parents never felt they made the wrong choice."

"They kept telling me how great, how free, and how advanced America is."

"But I watched with my own eyes as they worked three jobs to pay their rent, earning less than two thousand dollars a month between the two of them, living in a dilapidated attic, and eating the same kind of shredded beef patties and packaged bacon that are all the rage back home, which taste like boiled pork belts."

"I suffered so much as a child back then. I had indigestion and my stomach hurt terribly."

My parents work away from home and don't have time to take care of me.

He took a breath and then slowly exhaled.

"In the end, my dad collapsed on the ground due to overwork and lumbar muscle strain. He took painkillers, tonics, whatever pain relief he could find..."

"Without medical insurance and without money, we were already in debt, and now things are even worse."

"My mother couldn't support the family alone, and she died from overwork..."

"They desperately wanted to become Americans, but they themselves remained East University students until their deaths."

"That's why I hate those people who have houses, cars, and jobs in China, whose parents are still alive and who have a lot of friends, yet they spend all day online cursing their own country."

"They don't know what they have. They were born in a place with 1.4 billion compatriots, with familiar streets, tacit understandings that don't need explanation, and... a country."

"They threw all that away and came to America only to find that you're always an outsider here. America won't treat you like one of their own. You're just another Asian face who can speak English."

"So when they got off the plane, I incited them to burn their passports, cutting off any possibility of them returning home," Gu Jinghong chuckled maliciously.

Ang Lee stopped chewing and didn't interrupt.

As Gu Jinghong spoke, his expression gradually shifted from sadness to a highly sarcastic tone.

"Do you know what I do before I go live every day?"

"I opened those people's private chat groups and read their complaints one by one."

"They would complain about American supermarkets selling counterfeit goods, about police abusing them, about how tiring and poorly paid jobs are in America, and about their colleagues discriminating against them. I would read through each of their complaints and then comfort them one by one."

Ang Lee looked at him. "Why did you do that? Were you gloating?"

Gu Jinghong smiled. "Of course."

"They will suffer, they will hit walls, and then they will say in private chats, 'America is not what I imagined.'"

"I watched them from behind the screen, watching them walk the same path that my parents walked back then."

"The more they come, the more I earn. And then I sit at home watching them relive my parents' experiences, and that feeling... you can't imagine."

He leaned back in his chair, picked up his coffee cup, and held it in his hand.

"I hate them because they don't know what they've lost."

"I helped them out because I wanted to see if they didn't know what they had lost."

"That expression of excitement, of feeling like you've escaped oppression and arrived in a free country."

"Hahahaha, you have no idea how funny that expression was. Coupled with the way they regretted it afterward, I laughed even harder."

Ang Lee picked up an iced orange juice, took a sip of steak, and continued listening to Gu Jinghong vent his frustrations.

"Those who have already come out of poverty will not regret it. No matter what their lives have been like, no matter how much hardship they have endured, how many setbacks they have faced, or how many basements they have slept in, they will not say on social media that they regret it."

"They just use different phrases. When things aren't going well, they say, 'We need more time to adjust.'"

"When I'm sick, I say that bearing it alone is also a form of growth. When I can't make it, I won't post anything. I'll wait until things stabilize before posting a new photo with the caption 'The sun always shines after the storm.'"

"At first I thought they were just being stubborn, but then I realized they weren't. Their bodies were indeed suffering, but they had already written their own story before they set off, a story in which they were courageous choosers."

"They gave up everything to pursue a better life. If they admit they made the wrong choice, the story falls apart, and they themselves will collapse as well."

He picked up his phone, unlocked it, and then turned the screen towards Ang Lee. The screen displayed a social media account with the ID "Old Zhang from New York," whose latest post was from three hours prior, with the caption:

"In my third year in the US, I finally got my work permit. Although I'm still delivering food, at least I can breathe freely. Those people back home who advised me to go back, you'll never understand what it truly means to be alive."

Gu Jinghong put his phone away. "Did you see the comments section?"

Ang Lee chewed on his steak and shook his head. "No."

The first comment said: "Go, Lao Zhang! When you get your citizenship, let's go back for a trip together and make them jealous."

The second point says, "People in China can't stand seeing others do well; the more successful you are, the more jealous they become."

The third point says, "Honestly, even the worst America is a hundred times better than China." Scroll down for more.

"They will never have the kind of tearful regret you imagine. They will be in the basement eating instant noodles while scrolling through their phones. When they see someone commenting 'Come back,' they will open that person's profile, glance at it, say 'You'll never understand,' and then continue eating their instant noodles."

"This is Runren."